Friday, January 6, 2012

State report questions federal wolf investigations

By AP
| January 05, 2012

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A new
report from a wolf management review panel says state and federal
biologists are unreasonably far apart in determining the cause of cattle
deaths, stating that national scientists have reached "difficult to
understand" conclusions that would financially benefit cattlemen and
could harm wolves.

The report scheduled to be presented Friday to the
Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission states that some findings reached by
the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services appeared "to be
inconsistent with evidence presented and in a number of instances
appeared to be the result of misidentification of evidence."
At stake are set-aside state funds that would
reimburse cattlemen if the state determines wolves were behind a
livestock kill. Also, ranchers with such claims could be allowed to take
potentially lethal deterrent measures.

State wildlife biologists have been far more cautious in their assessments of canine guilt than their federal counterparts.

Further, the report notes confusion about how state
and federal agencies reached different conclusions based on the same
data, calling into question federal determinations.

"The panel found it difficult to understand how
(Wildlife Services) investigators reached their conclusions from their
written reports," according to the report.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
identified 33 livestock kill investigations, 10 of which were confirmed
wolf kills. But in at least three instances where state biologists said
the source of a livestock death couldn't be determined, federal
biologists said they found conclusive evidence of wolf culpability.

"There's several instances and cases where you have
differences of professional opinion," said Wildlife Services state
director Dave Williams on Thursday. "We have a long history of working
together on all types of wildlife management plans."

The $100,000 compensation fund, established by the
Legislature in 2011, is controlled by the Oregon Department of
Agriculture but will be administered on the local level by county
committees.

Ranchers who have lost livestock or who plan to
install deterrents such as special fencing must file claims with county
committees, which in turn must apply for money on Feb. 15 each year.
Also, 33 ranchers have obtained state permits that would let them kill
wolves seen biting or killing livestock, but ranchers have to visually
witness the attack. Wolves typically hunt at night.

Sean Stevens, spokesman for conservation group
Oregon Wild, said the report calls the Wildlife Services investigations'
credibility into question.

The panel's report comes days after Oregon's most famous wolf, called OR-7, crossed into California.
OR-7 left the Imnaha pack in northeastern Oregon
last September, shortly before the state put a death warrant on his
father — the pack's alpha male— and a sibling for killing cattle. He is a
descendant of wolves introduced into the Northern Rockies in the 1990s,
and represents the westernmost expansion of a regional population that
now tops 1,650.

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone